REVIEWS

GREY GARDENS

Galbraith, who possesses the best voice in the cast, becomes quite likable in the play's 1973 segment, playing the 17-year-old long-haired townie Jerry…
-Mercury News of Palo Alto

…the creamy voice of Nicholas Galbraith.
-Talking broadway

..it’s a first-rate production.
-SF Theatre Examiner

Nicholas Galbraith gives a completely naturalistic performance as Joe Kennedy.”  And “hugely entertaining.
-BeyondChron

Galbraith evokes a young Kennedy beautifully…
-Palo Alto Weekly

A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Westport show lightens up on Scrooge
by Joanne Greco Rochman, REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

Last year, Tazewell Thompson, artistic director at the Westport Country Playhouse, created his own adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." The production was rather heavy and the staging and costumes memorably dark. .....While many productions throughout the state are presenting adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" with flying ghosts and realistic falling snow, the Westport production does something quite different. Scrooge lies on his bed with his arms straight out in front of him as though he were flying and then spins around and around with the ghost of Christmas Past. When he stops twirling, he's in a different place. It's quite effective and emphasizes the theatrical in theater without the bells and whistles. ...Nick Cordileone as Bob Cratchit is thoroughly likeable and so is Nicholas Galbraith as Scrooge's kind-hearted nephew, Fred. Marcy McGuigan as Mrs. Cratchit delivers a believable character who really would hesitate toasting a mean-spirited boss. McGuigan makes us believe that she would rather roast than toast Scrooge. Forrest McClendon plays Christmas Past again and he still looks like Aladdin's genie in his gold lame costume. Overall, this is a pleasant production the whole family will enjoy.

BAT BOY
Sink Your Teeth into ‘Bat Boy: The Musical’
by Brien Murphy, Reporter-News Staff Writer

Bat boy: The Musical is, honestly, the best cautionary tale I’ve ever seen inovolving interspecies breeding, torch-bearing mobs and tighty-whitey underwear. The cast performed the jaw-droppingly differently play with such giddy abondon, that I rather enjoyed myself. ‘Bat Boy: The Musical’ by Keyth Farley, Brian Flemming and Laurence O’Keefe, is based on a tabloid story about a half-bat, half-boy living in a small West Virginia town. Found by amateur spelunkers, Bat Boy (Nicholas Galbraith) is carted to a veterinarians’ family, which tries to teach our her how to act human. Bat Boy changes from a screeching, furniture perchin caged rat-eater, into a charming, erudite, dancing... rat-eater. But Bat Boy’s emergence coincides with the deaths of many of the town’s cows. Spooked townspeople (whose family trees intersect ar “red” and “neck”) order Bat Boy out of town despite his gentle decency and a budding romance. Directed by Shane Hill, ‘Bat Boy: The Musical’ offers plenty of “I can’t believe-weregetting- away-with-this” glee.... One ACT II scene involving dancing animals was so bizarre y thesaurus is uselss. Galbraith gave a wonderful performance at Thursday’s opening-night show, nailing the complicated tast of evolving before the audience members’ eyes. If for no other reason, see this play for the scene where Bat Boy learns English.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Love painful in 'Last Five Years' musical
by Janet Van Vleet/Reporter-News Staff Writer

A couple goes through love, marriage and a breakup, with each singing their side of the story in ''The Last Five Years,'' a musical being performed at McMurry University's Radford Auditorium. What makes this sad, sweet play different is the telling. Cathy shares her pain starting from the breakup and working back to their meeting. Jamie's story begins when he first sees her and ends with the final moments of their marriage. Nicholas Galbraith, an Abilene native, plays Jamie with exuberance as he falls hard for Cathy (Holly Pierson), singing about breaking his mother's heart in ''Shiksa Goddess.'' He uses his entire body throughout the play, jumping and leaping about. As the show continues, that enthusiasm fades to jadedness in ''Nobody Needs to Know.'' Pierson displays anger and mourning, her sadness leaking from her like tears as she sings ''Still Hurting'' and ''See, I'm Smiling.'' As time rolls back, her sorrow gives way to joy and giddiness. The combination of the actors' portrayals and the play's material had me leaving the theater hurting for the pain the characters went through. Although the two actors frequently share the stage, they don't interact with each other except in one scene. Speaking the few bits of dialogue in the play, they merely play off each other. Costume changes show the passage of time. The 90-minute play contains themes of adultery and anger, as well as a few swear words, making it a better fit for adult audiences. A junior this fall at North Carolina School of the Arts, Galbraith was accompanied by three others with ties to the school: vocal director Greg Walter, a faculty member; Pierson, a fourth-year student; and director Gaye Taylor Upchurch, an alum.

WEST SIDE STORY - 50th Anniversary Production
Chicago Sun Times
Could it be? Yes, it could!
by Hedy Weiss, Theater Critic

"West Side Story" would undoubtedly be on the list of the top five groundbreaking musicals in American theater history alongside "Oklahoma!," "My Fair Lady," "Guys and Dolls" and something (almost anything) by Stephen Sondheim. (To ease the competition, let's consider "Porgy and Bess" an opera.) So why has the show, which arrived on Broadway in 1957 and proceeded to become an iconic film musical, been revived so rarely?

Answers to that question could be discovered Friday night as the Ravinia Festival presented the 50th anniversary production of the musical before a sold-out house. The production originated at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the highly respected performing arts conservatory whose students often find their way to Broadway, and whose faculty includes two men (director Gerald Freeman and conductor John Mauceri) with direct ties to the creative team behind "West Side Story." That team, of course, included four young men at the peak of their youthful powers -- composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Sondheim, director-choreographer Jerome Robbins and book writer Arthur Laurents.

The show's score remains irresistible -- from the distinctive finger snaps of the opening sequence that conjure the tension of Manhattan's mean streets, where European immigrant kids faced off against the more recently arrived Puerto Ricans, to the mambo-infused dance at the gym. And to see the Jets and Sharks attempt to claim their turf in Robbins' jazzy, high-flying dance language -- with little but chain-link fences and ghetto stoops as a backdrop -- is all it takes for the adrenalin to start flowing.

Yet in a strange way the musical, reproduced here as an authentic replica of the original, seems caught in a time warp -- more of a period piece than some of the other great musicals on the list. And I kept thinking of what Hal Prince, one of the show's original producers, said more than a decade ago: "Compared to what is going on in the streets now, 'West Side Story'looks like a Sunday school picnic."

The North Carolina production, performed with the orchestra seated upstage (which left the dance space feeling rather cramped), featured some exceptionally high-level student work, with Jordan Brown as the earnest, romantic, golden-voiced Tony, Katharine Elkington as the semi-operatic Maria (who demonstrated a nice sense of self rather than playing overly cute), and Jenna Fakhoury (a fine dancer and actress as well as a strong singer) as the worldly wise Anita. Ben Gunderson's Riff had a youthful, wiry tension; Tammy Carrasco was particularly memorable as Anybodys (the outcast girl who ached to be a Jet); Jonathan Odom was a more substantial than usual Chino, and Vanessa Hernandez was charming as the nostalgic Puerto Rican immigrant countering Anita in "America," a number that is invariably a big hit. And when a gun failed to fire at the most crucial moment, the cast handled it with impressive professional panache, just moving forward with full dramatic force.

Robbins' exceedingly difficult choreography (re-created here by Kevin Backstrom) was danced with high energy, if not with quite the high gloss you might see on Broadway. So the idea of "authenticity" cut both ways in this production. Seeing age- appropriate actors gave the whole undertaking a touching quality. On the other hand, the diamond-hard edge required for Broadway brilliance (an edge Robbins famously tormented his dancers to achieve, and the quality that makes the ordinary seem out of theordinary) was not quite there.

All in all, a laudable effort, though a knockout Broadway revival of "West Side Story" is still needed. And maybe the only way to carry that off is to frame it as a production being performed by gang member inmates in a contemporary prison.